Citizenship Question On 2020 Census: Good Or Bad?

The new outrage this week has been over the Trump’s Administration desire to add a question about your citizenship on the 2020 census. The last time a question asking about someone’s citizenship was asked on the U.S. census was back in the 1950’s.

The question would be:

Is this person a citizen of the United States?

The left believes that is a racist question, if you believe that could you please inform me why you believe that is a racist question?

Bloomberg News is reporting about an Obama appointed federal judge who has recently ruled to block that question from our census. Obviously many on the left are very happy about that. The question is, why is that question so offensive to the left.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said in his 277-page opinion:

Hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of people will go uncounted in the census if the citizenship question is included…In arriving at his decision as he did, Secretary Ross violated the law

Kelly Laco, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in a statement:

Our government is legally entitled to include a citizenship question on the census and people of the United States have a legal obligation to answer…Reinstating the citizenship question ultimately protects the right to vote and helps ensure free and fair elections for all Americans.

I could be receptive to some of the left’s reasoning’s on this issue but there is a huge “but” that they would have to either answer or accept for me to accept their argument and this ruling.

Let me first inform you what our census data is used for. From the US Census own website they state the following:

How Our Data Are Used

To determine the distribution of Congressional seats to states.

Mandated by the U.S. Constitution

Used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives

Used to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government

To make planning decisions about community services, such as where to:

Provide services for the elderly

Build new roads and schools

Locate job training centers

To distribute more than $675 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year.

Census data informs how states and communities allocate funding for:

Neighborhood improvements

Public health

Education

Transportation

Did you see the big “but” in their stated goals above?

Here it is, the U.S. census is used to:

To determine the distribution of Congressional seats to states.

Used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives

Used to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government

That is where the problem starts with me. How can we determine the distribution of Congressional seats to states then use this data to appropriate seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and then to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government, on data that includes illegal aliens or as some like to call them “undocumented” people.

If we include illegal aliens in the census, then the states with large numbers of illegal aliens would be unfairly given congressional seats when by the constitution they do not deserve them. States with less illegal aliens would suffer because their congressional seats could and would be taken away from them. In fact Michigan is due to lose another congressional district thus a congress-person to represent us.

So if those of you who believe the citizenship question should not be on the U.S. census agree that we should not use this inaccurate data when you consider the important goals of the census, which is to appropriate congressional seats, I and many others would not have a problem accepting your argument and the judge’s ruling.

In fact there are about 22 million people in the United States illegally. The average congressional district is about 700,000 people. That would mean a state or states could get an additional 32 congress-people and those seats would need to be taken away from states that actually have more American citizens in them.

It appears that we have a conflict of interest with our census. On one hand we do need to know the amount of people living in the United States, both legally and illegally. On the other hand only American citizens should be counted when appropriating Congressional Districts to the states and the Congress-people who are allotted to those states.

See, just take the agenda politics out of the question and answer a very simple question and I think most intelligent and common sense people could agree.